


teacup

by the_garbage_will_do



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Undercover Boss: Starkiller Base - SNL Sketch
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Kylo Ren is Matt the Radar Technician, Kylo Ren is Randy the Intern, M/M, Post-Break Up, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22415596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_garbage_will_do/pseuds/the_garbage_will_do
Summary: “Matt the Radar Technician” had been Hux’s idea.The intern is Ren's.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	teacup

“Matt the Radar Technician” had been Hux’s idea.

“You’re too far above them,” Hux had murmured one night. “Kylo Ren, master of the Knights of Ren. How would you understand the life of a stormtrooper? Why they’d prefer to spend their days without having their tracheas crushed?”

Loose-limbed and drifting in something like happiness, Ren had humored him, and together they had concocted one of their most harmless schemes. An orange vest. A yellow wig. Glasses which Hux chose, claiming they would obscure his face. 

(In truth Hux had just liked a man with spectacles. He’d taken great pleasure in holding Ren face-to-face that night, in kissing him, bumping half on accident into the massive metal rims.)

Hux doesn’t hold Ren anymore.

.

The intern is Ren’s idea. He conspires with the Order’s considerable espionage services to design a new disguise and draw up the necessary forms. Ren chooses the name himself for Hux’s sake, to eliminate any ambiguity as to his intentions.

He trusts Hux— ever-attentive to the state of his crew— will take note of him the moment he arrives.

In the guise of a hapless intern, Ren lands on the  _ Finalizer.  _ Hux rules that ship now and always, splitting his time between this Destroyer of his own and Pryde’s  _ Steadfast.  _ Ren had allowed him this privilege, an attempt at an unspoken apology. Quickly he integrates himself with the lowest of the  _ Finalizer’s  _ crew, a team of interns drowning in reams of Hux’s paperwork. Ren fills out requisition forms with unusual care, likening them to love letters, and he waits to be summoned to General Hux’s offices for a bitter scolding or perhaps a thorough commendation...

Hux never calls.

.

Ren breaks first.

He mind-tricks his way to Hux’s personal quarters, bearing tarine tea that he claims Hux ordered. The guards part too easily for him. He wonders if Hux ordered them to.

The doors part. Too quickly, Ren stands in Hux’s bedroom, in “Randy the Intern”’s khakis and his wretched bowl-shaped hat. Hux is turned away from him, staring out at the stars: a vision in his black uniform, stark and pale and flame-haired, the most  _ Hux _ he has ever looked.

Ren forgets to breathe.

After a long moment, Hux throws a glance over his shoulder. “Really? ‘Randy?’”

“I thought you might laugh.”

“It’s not a name that suits you.”

“I hoped it’d...cut out any doubt about what I wanted.”

Hux shrugs and returns to his stargazing.

“You always wanted me to care more about the health of the larger organization.” Ren swallows, trying to raise his voice above a mutter. “I’ve played the part, I’ve learned more than I ever wanted about your paperwork. That admiral, he was an old Imperial with your father so I…”

“Summarily blew up his head as a gift?”

Hux’s voice is compressed, oddly neutral, yet there’s a sharp twist to “gift.”

“...Right. And I put a sexist director in his place for you, and I even let my facial hair grow out a bit beyond regulation."

Hux had always liked a little facial hair on a man, yet he replies with silence. The teacup suddenly seems too small in Ren’s hands.

At last Hux unwinds a slow exhale. “So was all this your idea of foreplay?”

“...I wanted to reopen communications. We haven’t talked much recently.”

“Not since you choked me and then threw me into a wall,” Hux elaborates, tone perfectly conversational. 

“I—” Ren squashes the impulse to throw the teacup into a wall, to punish it for its crushing inadequacy. “How do I fix this?”

Hux freezes, suddenly still as marble.

“Can I fix this?”

“I did notice Randy,” he says by way of answer. “From the moment his enlistment forms hit the servers.”

“I guessed you would.”

“And I watched him on your precious cameras. And would you like to know what I saw?”

Ren can’t force the word “yes” out of his throat.

Hux turns around, revealing eyes red as his hair. “Even now, when you devote yourself so loudly to winning back my favor—” Ren winces at the stinging sarcasm— “you nearly executed an innocent intern, and we both know why.”

Ren doesn’t know why, not at first; it blurs into a thousand other near-executions. He peeks into Hux’s head and finds the whole scene ringing through his mind, deafening as a cannon.

_ When Kylo Ren offers Rey his hand for the second time, do you think she’ll take it? _

“She’s going to get us both killed,” Hux muses.

He cannot deny it.

“And for the record,” Hux adds, voice falling once more into that lethal neutrality, “I take my tea with blue milk now.”

Ren can’t say a single thing. He settles for a stiff nod, missing his mask desperately, and moves to leave the teacup on a nearby table. When he looks back up, Hux’s eyes are dry.

“You’re dismissed, intern.”


End file.
